DC TV Weekly #10

Hot Dingo! We're back baby! I have missed talking about DC Shows, so let's get into it!














Supergirl 'Supergirl Lives' Review
Seems to be coming a bit of a tradition for Kevin Smith to direct episodes of this universe. Doing two episodes of Flash, one great, one awful, and now he's doing Supergirl, in an episode lovingly tributing his failed Superman film 'Superman Lives'. Though, anyone who doesn't know about that would be rather confused by that title. However, Smith has managed to make the impossible possible, he made Mon-El interesting, and made the idea of Mon-El and Kara not absolutely ridiculous. In the past Mon-El has been portrayed as selfish, simple, lazy and kind of a jerk. Now he's still all of those things here, minus the jerk. All of his flaws are played up for comedic affect here, and even more so, this isn't a case of Kara setting him up and him failing, but instead it's him setting himself up, then him failing, which doesn't reflect as badly on him as a character when we see he's trying. The fact that he's not a burden on anyone else makes his arc more valuable and reflective on him as a character, and seeing he and Kara having playful banter rather than melodramatic romance is just more entertaining for the audience.
Speaking of romance, yes Alex and Maggie are adorable, do I think they're playing it up a little bit because they know how much they enjoy it? Most likely, but I wouldn't call it pandering, but that little bit of drama seemed rather pointless, because nothing about their dynamic has changed, it was just there to act as filler. Speaking of pointless filler, James as Guardian is not an interested character or story, because like Kara said, he's really not doing anything that Supergirl can't, he's just picking up the scraps. Furthermore, all the scenes with Kara as a reporter continue to be boring, trivial and so damn useless. Some small notes: The Star Trek references were greatly appreciated, and why was Kara at the DEO in her civilian gear? Does everyone at the DEO know he secret identity? And I wish J'onn got more to do (He still has M'gann unlawfully imprisoned for crying out loud!)
To sum it up, in a shocking turn of events it was the romance stuff that was actually the best parts, but everything that sucked prior to this episode, still suck in this episode. 7/10.

The Flash 'Borrowing Problems From The Future' Review
Set-up. That's what this episode was. Lots and lots of set-up for future episodes, and catch-up for prior episodes. Getting everyone caught up to speed (Puns!) with Barry, having Wally officially become recognised as Kid Flash, making Julian an official member of Team Flash. On the set-up side we have Barry & Cisco seeing the future and noting down certain events such as Music Meister (Yay!) and the return of Killer Frost and Gorilla Grodd, all events to look forward too. Basically this was one giant "Previously on The Flash" for the characters, mixed with a "Next time on The Flash" for the audience. The only things really worth noting are the STAR Labs museum (Because we all know what that's gonna lead too) and Wally finally becoming Kid Flash and helping out...even if everything he did could have easily be done by Barry, but future events means he has to do it, technicalities, whatever, at least he wasn't just stood around complaining all episode.
Overall this was a very...non-episode, just a lot of recap and set-up, with a little bit of Kid Flash thrown in for good measure. 6/10.

Legends of Tomorrow 'Raiders of the Lost Art' Review
A Hanna Barbara reference, a subtle jab at Marvel, an entire episode based around the team having to save George-Freakin-Lucas! What nerd wouldn't love this episode!? Mostly for all the references to Star Wars, personal favourites being the "only hope" line and Malcolm getting the Wilhelm scream. Speaking of Malcolm, one major criticism I've heard someone say about him as a villain in this series is that he is a completely different character here than he was in Arrow. Which is not...untrue, hell, considering the time travel, he's basically just Captain Jack Harkness' evil twin. Thing is, I still find it very enjoyable, hell, this is possibly the most entertaining and the most personality Malcolm Merlyn has had since season one of Arrow, you know, before he was the worst father in the world to Thea but kept claiming he was great at it. Furthermore, I kind of want to see an edit of this episode that takes out all of Mick and Stein's scenes, except for the brain surgery, because seeing the characters walk in and that and Stein just shrugs it off like it's no big deal is kind of hilarious. At the start of this new season, I said I was perfectly fine if this show just wanted to be silly fun adventures, and I don't think you could get more silly and fun than this, there's no nuance or drama, it's just a fun romp. 8/10.

Arrow 'Who Are You?' Review
Thank-friggin-god Laurel is still dead! I seriously thought they were gonna pull some bullshit on us and bring her back to life, but instead it's just her evil counterpart Black Siren, which is so much better a choice. Now whether or not they used her to the best of her abilities...that could be debatable. I get what they were going for by trying to show things from her side and how she turned to villainy after Ollie's death on her world, but they just flip flopped with her too much and never really commited to a single idea or what her purpose was. This could have been a great story of Ollie forgiving himself for Laurel's death and being able to move on, but then when they throw in Felicity's paranoia, Black Siren questioning her role, trying to make her sympathetic but also straight up evil, none of it goes well, they should have just picked an idea and focused on that. Take the B-Plot for example, Curtis feeling insecure over his place in the team, which makes sense, a lot of things have just been going terribly for him. It was a simple idea with a great execution, though I wish it was Rory helping him instead of Rene because they have more in common and Rory is more of an empathetic person and...well, a better character. Also Talia Al Ghul is Prometheus. I'm willing to put money on it, just from her 3 second appearance, I already know it's her. Which also means half this season's story was bullshit, you can't have a mystery plot if the clues to the real answer aren't introduced until halfway through, that's cheating. So yeah, a messy A-Plot with a solid enough B-Plot. 6/10.

Man it feels good to talk about these shows again, even if it was mostly a lackluster opening week. It's an exciting time to be a DC TV Fan.

-Danny

Watch Dogs 2 - Cheap Thoughts

The original Watch Dogs is often considered to be one of the most over-hyped and disappointing games in recent memory. With an interesting mechanic and promise of being able to “Hack the planet” plus with gameplay showing great graphics, it was almost universally agreed that the game did not live up to those expectations. With a generic protagonist, uninteresting story and a clear downgrade in graphics from what was promised, no one seemed to like it. As someone who played it months after the hype died down and everyone seemed to dislike it, I have to say, I was still unimpressed with what I got. If a videogame could be summed up in a colour, it would be grey. Grey the videogame.

With that being said, once the trailer for Watch Dogs 2 was released at E3, I instantly found myself excited, because with the little bit of footage we saw, we saw a game with an identity. True, most people called it obnoxious pandering to millennials that came across more as what focus groups think young audiences behave like, but regardless, at least there was an identity to be described. From that one trailer, it already seemed like Ubisoft had listened to the feedback, and that gave me hope this game would be an improvement over the original. And it was.

Watch Dogs 2 follows a group of young hackers in San Francisco trying to stick it to greedy corporations and nosey governments by…hacking things. In a lot of ways, this story shouldn’t work. There is certainly a lingering feeling of manipulation as the characters feel like they were designed to appeal to young audiences, and the story is most certainly lacking in depth or unexpected twists, yet for some reason I still found myself genuinely connected with what was happening. Maybe it’s the talented voice-actors, maybe it’s the quippy dialogue, maybe it’s because the story doesn’t take itself too seriously, or maybe it’s a mixture of all three, but I was invested. I liked this group of characters, and if anything, I’m disappointed there weren’t more character based missions, because the few that were there are the ones that stick out to me the most.

Marcus and Wrench’s friendship was highly entertaining, but it’s the level where Wrench is kidnapped and you have to save him where you really see the depth and trust between the two. None of the other characters truly get missions dedicated to them and that’s a shame, because the character driven missions were easily my favourites. This is certainly a character driven game, while the story is generic and not that engaging, by the time I finished, I was saddened because it meant I wasn’t going to get to interact with this crew anymore, and suddenly I lost most of my interest in playing. Though that shouldn’t be taken as too harshly of a criticism.

In a lot of ways, the gameplay shouldn’t be as good as I think it is. The game begins with a quick and easy tutorial level and a few cutscenes establishing the world, then within about half an hour, you’re free to roam the world and do the story missions whenever you feel like it. Hell, if you wanted, you could explore the entire world and get all the upgrades before even starting the first real mission. Now this isn’t really anything special, lots of open world games let you do this, but when I think of why it works so well in this game, one word comes into my mind, “Fun”. That’s the big improvement over Watch Dogs 1, plus a ton of open world games. This game’s main objective is for you to have a fun time, San Francisco isn’t a sandbox, it’s an entire playground with multiple toys to unlock, even if you don’t have a complex or original time, you are certainly going to have a fun time.

I also think this is why the repetitive gameplay and missions don’t bother me. The majority of the levels can be described as “Drive to this location, hack this, then either sneak out or shoot your way out”, and yes, that applies to both side-missions and main missions. If you were to look back at a lot of classic games like Super Mario Bros, Crash Bandicoot or even more modern games like Far Cry (Another Ubisoft series). A lot of them have incredibly repetitive missions, just with a few aesthetic changes or slightly different obstacle to overcome, almost every generation of gaming has this, but why doesn’t it bother us? Because it’s fun. While I’m always one for story heavy games, it can’t be denied, if there is more focus on making your audience think and pay close attention, flaws in gameplay are going to become more noticeable. Take for example the Uncharted games, the first 3 were basically adventure stories that only cared about being exciting and action packed, it’s the fourth one however where they try to give it a more intricate plot and character arcs, not a bad decision, but it certainly makes the game feel slower, and I became bored of the repetitive gameplay a lot quicker. The same can be said for Watch Dogs 1, except it has the even bigger problem that for a story heavy game, the story is not very interesting, meaning it has boring gameplay, and a boring story to boot. Watch Dogs 2 is like a firework show, it’s so fast, so bright and so dazzling, you don’t really care if it’s the same thing over and over again.

When Watch Dogs 1 came out, I couldn’t even finish it from how little I cared about what was happening and I got no more than a few hours into. Watch Dogs 2, took the same gameplay (Minus some minor but consistent annoyances), gave us entertaining characters, a more diverse colour pallet, and probably most important, some reasonable expectations with much more accurate trailers, not promising that this will be a revolutionary experience, but certainly an entertaining one. Honestly, if they make a Watch Dogs 3, I am more than happy to follow these characters around for a second time, and I’m giving this game an 8/10.

-Danny

How To Fix The Majin Buu Saga

Nearly a year ago, I wrote up a post where I reworked the Cell Saga from Dragonball Z, and I said I might take a look at Dragonball GT someday. But, before that, we have to take a look at the next arc in the Dragonball series, the Majin Buu saga. Now, like last time, here’s a recap of how the story goes in the original series. Taking place roughly 7 years after the Cell Saga, Gohan is now a teenager in high school and has given up on his training, ChiChi had a second son Goten, who is best friends with Trunks. Everyone seems happy and fine, but that is until a god named Supreme Kai shows up and informs them that an evil presence known as Babidi is trying to revive an evil and powerful spirit known as Majin Buu. So, with Goku returning to Earth for just one day, they all try and prevent this, fail, Vegeta turns evil again, but then sacrifices himself, Goku’s day runs out so he has to go back to the afterlife, and now it’s up to our remaining heroes to stop Buu. After several attempts including fusion, training with the gods, and Buu transforming several times, nothing seems to work, so in the end Goku of course is the one who comes in, saves the day and kills Buu.

Now obviously technically speaking, I wouldn’t have to change a lot from where my version of the Cell saga left off, except that Vegeta was also dead. But that could easily be rectified by having him be brought back with Goku…except I ain’t gonna do that. Nope. Instead I’m gonna rewrite it so that Vegeta and Goku are left out of the whole thing, because if you remember, both in my version and in Toriyama’s version, the Cell Saga ends with Gohan inheriting the responsibilities of protecting the Earth and being the most powerful warrior, so it’s just a big slap in the face for the character to be shoved to the wayside during this arc, no, he’s the main character, that’s how it’s supposed to be. So let’s begin.

First off, I’m setting this story even further into the future, not 7 years, but 13. That way, I’m going to have it that Gohan is just graduating from college after finishing some kind of Masters or PhD, hell, knowing his mother she would have made him do 3 at once. And Trunks is just a little older than Gohan was during the Cell Saga. The first few episodes will be very slice of life, just like they were in the original series, except the focus here is on Gohan training Trunks, while also trying to find a job (Not that hard considering his many qualifications) and he’s also trying to balance this with his relationship with Videl, who he’s been dating for several years at this point. During this time we’ll establish that Trunks is a very powerful Saiyan, possibly even more powerful than Gohan was at that age, but also while Gohan has been keeping up with his training, and is much more powerful than he was during the Cell Sage, fighting just isn’t in his heart. Keep in mind, Gohan is a pacifist, he doesn’t like fighting, and if he had the choice, he would retire his fighting lifestyle, but feels Trunks isn’t ready for that level of responsibility.

This brings us to the other Z Fighters, during the 13 years, they’ve all taken turns training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber to become much stronger, not as strong as Trunks or Gohan, but strong enough. But, seeing as they’re not really needed on Earth, Tien, Chiaotzu, Krillin and Yamcha have all left Earth to become intergalactic heroes with King Kai co-ordinating their missions, why? Because that would just be kinda cool, and give them more to do than just stand there, at least this way you can imagine they’re doing something useful off screen. Now here’s where I have to do a bit of retconning from my previous story. In the Cell Saga I said Dende still becomes the guardian of Earth, but after thinking it over, I’ve decided to cut him out and just make Piccolo the guardian, because that still makes sense, he is still technically Kami so why not? Trust me, it’ll make the story more dramatic later on.

Now, finally, the story begins. King Kai sensing that a planet is under attack, sends off the Z Fighters to help, the villains attacking the planet of course are Babidi and Dabura. After an epic fight between the Z Fighters and Dabura where they put up a decent fight, but in the end are beaten, the Z Fighters learn that Babidi is looking for strong fighters to absorb, once they learn the Z Fighters are from Earth, which is also where the people who killed Freeza are from, they decide to travel there in hopes for even more powerful heroes they can absorb power for their greatest weapon, Majin Buu. So they leave the Z Fighters and the planet in critical condition and head for Earth, King Kai takes note of this and instantly warns Gohan, Trunks and Piccolo on who’s coming.

With Piccolo, Gohan and Trunks united, ready for the threat, this is where Piccolo’s arc rears its head. Impressed by how much Gohan has grown in the years since Piccolo was his mentor, and now seeing his prodigy mentoring someone else, makes him question how useful he can be. Yes, Piccolo is the third strongest man on the planet, but there is such a huge gap in power, especially when the other two are so much younger, he becomes insecure in himself. Eventually Babidi and Dabura arrive, and this is where everything from the discovery of Babidi’s ship, to when Vegeta explodes is exactly the same, except replace Goku with Gohan, Vegeta with Piccolo, and Supreme Kai with Trunks. Babidi has three tasks set up that will cause the trio to fight, and the more energy they use, the closer Majin Buu is to being freed. However, when all three tasks prove to be incredibly easy, the only one giving some kind of challenge is Gohan vs Dabura, Babidi becomes increasingly more desperate. Using his magic, Babidi senses the former evil in Piccolo that he has buried deep inside of him and Babidi exploits that. He feeds thoughts into Piccolo’s mind, manipulates him, forces him to face his insecurities, his fears and secret desires to be stronger, eventually making Piccolo succumb to Babidi’s magic and become his puppet.

Now, with Piccolo returning to his evil roots, he begins to fight Gohan, leaving Trunks to fight Dabura. Now because Gohan is injured and would never want to hurt Piccolo, he’s forced to hold back, while Piccolo-having become stronger thanks to Babbidi’s magic-has no problem giving it everything he’s got. Likewise, Trunks would usually have very little chance against Dabura, but thanks to his fight with Gohan injuring and exhausting him, it’s an even fight. Not that any of this matters, because the longer they fight, the closer Majin Buu gets to being freed. But before that, during the fight between Piccolo and Gohan, emotions are running rampant, both have to come face to face with how they’ve changed. Piccolo thinking Gohan has forgotten him, shuns him, or even worse, pities him. Gohan tries to get through that he’s never felt that way, this is all Babidi’s magic talking, tricking Piccolo into thinking this, but in actuality Gohan has always viewed Piccolo as an incredible mentor, even to this day. Sadly though, none of it seems to be getting through.

Eventually the two fights come to a close, Dabura beating Trunks near to death, at this point just toying with him, and Piccolo about to end the fight with Gohan. However, once Gohan sees Dabura about to go for the finishing blow, one giant blast of energy, a spark erupts in Gohan, he unleashes a giant punch to Piccolo so he can get away, showing just how much he was holding back that even in the state he was in, he could have beaten Piccolo at any moment. All Piccolo can do is witness Gohan jump in front of the blast at the very last second to protect his prodigy, just like Piccolo did for Gohan all those years ago. Stunned by the act he’s just seen, something snaps in Piccolo. Gohan collapses to the ground, not dead, but certainly by death's door. Dabura, now drained of energy, draws his sword, ready to take out Trunks and Gohan the old fashioned way, but Piccolo intercepts; breaking Dabura’s arm and sends him flying, he quickly charges up a Special Beam Cannon and blows a hole right through Dabura’s chest, killing him. With Buu’s pod already beginning to hatch, Piccolo knows they have no chance on beating it, unless he makes the ultimate sacrifice. He quickly tells Trunks to apologies to Gohan when he wakes up, and to tell him how proud he is of him. Trunks flies off, carrying Gohan, and Piccolo unleashes all of his energy in one giant blast, consuming both Babidi and Majin Buu.

King Kai, viewing the whole ordeal, grieves for the loss of Piccolo, and thanks him for his noble sacrifice. But-before he can finish, he notices, the pod Buu was hatching from, is still intact, and Buu still emerges, completely unscathed. Once Trunks arrives at the Lookout with Gohan, he gives him a senzu bean so he’ll regain consciousness. He learns of Piccolo’s sacrifice and explodes with agony, but he has no time to grieve. King Kai contacts them and informs them Buu survived and is free on Earth. He explains that he has been looking into the history of Babidi and Buu. Babidi was from a planet of magic users, what our heroes know as Ki, they call magic, and they didn’t use it for fighting, but for sorcery, and Babidi was one of the most powerful, but dreamed of being the only magic user so he would be the most powerful. Through his experiments he ended up draining all the magic from the other citizens of his planet, killing them, and creating Buu. They then went around the universe, killing other magic users, however, eventually Buu’s power would run out, and need to recharge. So during this time Babidi would have to travel to planets with powerful magic users, have them use all their power so Buu could absorb it, though he knew he needed protection so he used his magic to recruit Dabura. Thankfully, now that Babidi is dead thanks to Piccolo, this’ll be the last Buu, once he runs out of energy, he’ll die permanently. On the other hand, now that Piccolo is dead, that means they have no Dragon balls, and no Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

While Gohan recovers and they try to think of a plan to stop Buu from destroying the Earth, but they quickly realize, Buu isn’t destroying the Earth. Any and all havoc he caused, he did under Babidi’s rule, so, with no Babidi around, Buu is just doing whatever he wants to do, in this case, eating sweets. However, King Kai suggests that Gohan travels to his world so he can train him, just in case, while the other Z Fighters will keep an eye on Buu. So Gohan heads off to train with King Kai, just like his dad did; and seeing as he is much stronger than his dad was when they trained, it shouldn’t take as long, and who is helping him with the training? None other than Goku and Piccolo. The next several days on Earth see Buu be taken in by Mr Satan and Videl, who learns from the Z Fighters that as long he stays happy, nothing bad should happen to Earth. For the first few days this seems to work, they give him food, they become his friend, even adopt a puppy. But, like in the original show, something bad has to happen to the puppy. In this case, the puppy nearly gets runover by a car, but Buu makes it explode to save him. This causes a panic, police start shooting, the dog gets caught in the crossfire, and this causes Buu to go ballistic and start murdering people, so Videl and Satan run out of there and head for shelter on the Lookout, along with every other DBZ character.

With Gohan still training, the Z Fighters are forced to head down there and confront Buu. Once down there, they know they can’t beat him in a straight up fight, but they are much smarter than Buu and hope that they can come up with a strategy against him. At first it seems to work; they keep forcing Buu to use up his energy with regeneration and stray blasts, Trunks is even able to do a lot of damage using Dabura’s sword. But, the strategy doesn’t last forever, eventually Buu is able to blast them all and they are down for the count, Trunks being able to last the longest, but eventually Buu knocks him down as well. Just as Buu is about to destroy the world for annoying him, Gohan shows up, having completed his training and gives all the others senzu beans.

Gohan uses the Kaioken to overpower Buu and uses the same strategy the Z Fighters did, try to drain him of all his energy as fast as possible. But Buu decides to use a strategy as well, he fires off a blast at the Z Fighters, Gohan gets in the way and takes the full blast. Buu uses this to his advantage and strikes Gohan several times and attacks him with another energy blast, severely injuring him. With nowhere else left to turn, Gohan decides to use the Spirit Bomb as a last ditch effort, with the Z Fighters distracting Buu so Gohan can charge it up. Using King Kai to speak to the entire planet, Gohan quickly absorbs a lot of energy, but he knows it’s not enough to take down Buu, so King Kai expands his reach to the entire galaxy, with dozens of planets recognising the Z Fighters, they instantly submit their energy, and suddenly Gohan is strong enough.

He unleashes the spirit bomb and Buu attempts to deflect it with all his might, but even with all this energy, it isn’t enough, so Gohan unleashes another technique he learnt on Kai’s planet, the Special Beam Cannon, and in the other hand, the Kamehameha. Combining the two and using that to increase the power of the Spirit Bomb, he’s eventually able to consume Buu in the energy and drain him of all of his power. In the aftermath, Buu has returns to his pod form, to which Trunks immediately cuts in half, killing Buu for good.

We then transition to one year later. Gohan has hung up his Gi and has retired to a life as a business man, and is set to marry Videl. While Trunks is now in charge of the Z Fighters, having shown great leadership skills in the battle against Buu, and now they explore the galaxy, saving lives. A perfect conclusion to the Dragon Ball Series.

So not only is my version of the story much more streamlined, getting rid of Buu’s transformations, fusions and an unnecessarily long story, this is much more simple, has in my opinion well developed character arcs and makes a lot of the characters far more useful than they were in the original Majin Buu arc. But that’s just my opinion. I hope you enjoyed reading and maybe some day I’ll get around to fixing GT.

-Danny

Stephen Moffat as a Writer

Moffat seems to be one of those love 'em or hate 'em kind of writers. Being the head writer for both Doctor Who and Sherlock, the man has developed quite a following, which of course comes with a lot of critics. I personally love Moffat as a writer...but I certainly have my quarrels with him, and I'm going to talk about them today.

What brought this on was the latest episode of Sherlock 'The Six Tatchers', throughout which I kept thinking the exact same thing "Remember when this show was about solving mysteries?". Because that's what Sherlock has devolved into, when the show first started, it's main selling point-hell you could argue this was the main selling point for Sherlock Holmes in general-is that he's an incredibly unique and talented man in a very ordinary world. But as the show has gone on, Sherlock has faked his death with a bouncy ball, John's wife has turned out to be a secret spy so super that she could give Jason Bourne a run for his money, and seemingly every background character is secretly a genius, or assassin or some other impossibly good at figure.

This is where the main flaw with Moffat comes in, and it's something I've thought about for years now. Moffat is a great writer, when he has limits. Just look at Doctor Who, a show where he can do literally whatever he wants, set it on any planet at any time, and as the series has gone on since he took control of the season long plots, suddenly every event has to be a universe ending event, suddenly every supporting character has to be the most important character in history. Because of that, everything feels far too over-bloating, needlessly complicated, and when every event is a universe ending event, it's hard to raise the stakes when they're at the same level for every episode. When Moffat can do anything, he will do anything, and it all suddenly becomes very redundant and stupid.

Just think back to when Moffat wasn't the head writer of Doctor Who, he would only write one or two episodes per season, and they had to be contained and small scale enough to fit into a 45 minute episode. Because of this, the stories were a lot more simple, and lot more creative. What's often considered to be Moffat's best episode of Doctor Who was series 3's 'Blink'. An episode where The Doctor is barely featured, and our main antagonist is a monster who we never see move. This is when Moffat is at his best, when he's contained, when he can't do whatever he wants and there are very clear rules that are established, not continuing stories that take 4 years to resolve and have 3 dozen plot twists in between that just makes it incredibly confusing. In fact, I think this not only hurts the audience, but he himself, it's easier to forget the rules of your story when each one has about 50 asterisks next to them. Take the series 9 finale of Doctor Who, where The Doctor goes as so far to shoot someone and kill them. Yes they're a time lord so they'll regenerate, but The Doctor knows regeneration still feels like death. The Doctor, took a life, something he would never do. This is the same man that off the top of his head described The Doctor as thus "When they made this hero they didn't give him a gun, they gave him a screwdriver to fix things. They didn't give him a tank or a warship or an X-Wing fighter, they gave him a call box from which you can call for help. And they didn't give him superpowers, they gave him an extra heart. There will never come a time when we don't need a hero like The Doctor.". So you can hardly say the man doesn't understand the character, but clearly has contradictions.

Now in the sake of fairness, even when it comes to his bad writing, it's never completely bad. Moffat has always been superb at dialogue, there is no doubt, the wit, the word play, the seemingly endless vocabulary these characters have, he is a master at dialogue. These are all problems with the plotting of his shows, the overall stories, because while he can certainly give us some nice dressing, the meal itself is pretty piss poor.

So those are my thoughts on Stephen Moffat as a writer, consistently brilliant dialogue, but his stories need to be put on a leash and try and get through a pitch meeting without once shouting "But what if!" because there's almost never anything good on the end of that sentence.

-Danny