It’s Shonday — erm, Thursday for all you non-Scandal obsessives (who ARE you? Oh am I alone here at Nerdist in that love? [Editor’s Note: Nope!]) out there in the world. And what a joyous day it is, indeed! Wednesday came and went with the quickness, ensuring that we’d all be able to watch the season premiere of American Horror Story: Freak Show. And oh what a premiere it was, wasn’t it? We wouldn’t expect anything less from that dementedly twisted Ryan Murphy mind, though.
In any event we’ve got some exciting, confounding, and truly exciting small screen news on the horizon. So let’s get right into it, shall we? OK!
Orphan Black is BACK: Oh sweet jay-sus and lord almighty: IT’S TIME TO REASSEMBLE, CLONE CLUB! Because guess what happened on Wednesday? That’s right — the first-ever read-through for season three of Orphan Black! YES. YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY AND NO MY CAPS LOCK KEY ISN’T BROKEN, IT’S JUST LOUD. The house that Tatiana Maslany built broke the news with a sweet little photo of our favorite sestrahood-incarnate and woops look at that we just piddled on the carpet a little bit in excitement (woops was that too weird? OH WELL). Feast YER EYES, folks! [Facebook]
Fun Fact: Tatiana Maslany is totally in that photo (hint: she’s playing a bottle of water. WHAT A METHOD MFer.
Curious about The Flash?: Before we get to the next tidbit, Joe McCabe reviewed the new CW series and you can read that right here right MEOW: [Nerdist]
How The Flash Beat S.H.I.E.L.D.: Oh snap, it’s ON, you guys. A war of ratings is officially a-brewing over in comic book TV adaptation land (a/k/a most of TV right now at the moment because Hollywood is nothing if not consistent in their attempts to grab at the zeitgeist?), because last night’s premiere of The Flash (on the CW) did better numbers than the on-a-major-network Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. over at ABC. OH SNAP, y’all! Oh snap! We’re happy DC Comics got one win over Marvel, though. They can’t really seem to do it anywhere else. [TVLine]
An Alternative Ending: With season five on the horizon, why not take a look at an ending of The Walking Dead‘s fourth season that would’ve been WAY WAY better, just sayin’. [Nerdist]
Bill Hader’s Back: Aww, you guys! One of the more gemtastic cast members to come out of Saturday Night Live as of late — in comparable Bill Hader — did some promos for his hosting gig on — we bet you’ll never guess — Saturday night. What a freaking cutie, right?
Well This is Awkward…: After five seasons, MTV’s popular series, Awkward, will be coming to an end. Somebody go cue up Vitamin C’s “Graduation (Friends Forever)” please? [TVLine]
Horror Story Clues: Ryan Murphy teased a ton of stuff in this interview, including the guarantee that a season five of American Horror Story is happening, and apparently some big-name superstar dude approached him to be on it. Oh! Also there are apparently some clues about next season IN THESE FIRST FEW EPISODES! Did anyone catch anything suspicious last night? [The Hollywood Reporter]
Retta, Queen of Everything: LOOK AT THIS FLAWLESS PERFECTION. Just look at it! [Oh No They Didn’t]
Neil Gaiman Wants to Hug Some Who Ladies: Only… there aren’t many female Doctor Who writerladies around! Which we cough cough totally noticed a while back and thought the series would do well to remedy! In our dreams Neil Gaiman totally read our story (pssstttttttttt it’s right here go click the thing!) and agreed with us. In fact, in our dreams Neil Gaiman is drafting a really delightful email and/or tweet to invite us to be his writing assistant for the next episode of the series he writes. We’d totally be open to it, Neil. I mean I know we’re just a silly American but STILL: give us a chance? We’re getting ahead of ourselves though, aren’t we? (But are we, Neil? ARE WE?!?!) [The Mary Sue]
Do you think Doctor Who should have more ladies writing episodes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments — we’re sure this won’t be divisive at all! Har har har oh jokes, so funny.
The 12th Doctor is really lame.
I do not care who writes the episodes or their gender. It just needs to be the best person for the job and who makes the best pitch. Personally, I would rather the Doctor ditch Earth and its companions for awhile.
I’m thrilled the Flash did well and loved the Pilot. I’m really looking forward to more, however, to declare victory over SHIELD is silly. First of all, they are NOT head to head in the time slot and secondly, I’m sure some of the viewers who tuned in to the pilot are likely doing so out of curiosity. The true test will be whether it can keep those viewers who tuned into the first episode to see what all the fuss was about.
This season of Doctor Who has been very disappointing. I am so close to giving up on the show. “Time Heist” is the only decent episode this season. Lots of the jokes feel gimmicky and really just aren’t funny. I know they feel like the show needs a new direction, but they need to make a 180 degree turn if they want to stop this show from digging itself a grave. Neil Gaiman has it right. Doctor Who needs something to save it and it should start with a female perspective, because honestly—Clara is whiney and rude and her story is utterly uninteresting. I think Moffat can make quality work, (Like “Blink”) but this is far from it. If this doesn’t change, I know many people who will abandon this show they’ve loved for so long. I just hope with all my heart Moffat does SOMETHING. I want so badly to love this season… but so far I’m just hopelessly missing RTD and hoping for Moffat to give up and pass the gauntlet to someone else. Anyone else, really.
I thought Listen was good as well. And I love capaldi… time for a new companion and some new writers!
I already gave up on the show.
I so don’t want to give up on Who, but this season has been very weak. I love Capaldi, but I feel he’s not being given a lot to work with. I feel like Clara went from this pivotal role in the series to just another bewildered companion. I hope something changes soon, I really do…
I like Steven Moffat and the direction he’s taken the show. Each female character he has given us has been drastically different than the other. Clara has been great and her story arc this season has been enticing and well written.
I get that there should be more female writers for the show and i agree, but you also ask how many female writers have put in for the job. I’m pretty sure Moffat would love to have more female writers but there are factors that people refuse to equate.
Neil Gaiman himself was bothered by the amount of rewrites and low pay of writing an episode. Again there is availability issues that could also be a factor.
I doubt it’s the case of them not wanting female writers especially for such a show like Doctor Who that has it’s key character is almost always a woman. Not to mention they employ a lot of women in their overall crew.
Given how ridiculous the last episode was (“Kill the Moon”), I think having some female perspective on the writing would do the show some good. Doctor Who has been my favorite show for the last few years, but I was so disappointed and even felt a little violated about the underlying to-kill-the-fetus or to-not-kill-the-fetus commentary on the last episode. And the Doctor disappears like he’s doing them some big favor of getting to choose. It was insulting. The best part of the episode was when Clara berates him for being patronizing. Seriously why go there? It felt so out of place and forced.
They went there to show a growing rift between Clara and the Doctor. The Doctor wasn’t patronizing, he took a heavy handed approach to show Clara what it was like to be him and make decisions that could influence whole planets or timelines. Decisions the Doctor makes and Clara keeps second guessing or lecturing him on. She had a taste of what it was like to be him and did not like it.
First off, just get rid of Steven Moffat. That would be a tremendous help. Secondly, bring in Neil Gaiman to be show runner whom i would trust to bring in (and lastly) female writers who would inherently be better than Moffat. Need I say more?
Gaiman wrote the Cybermen episode last fall, and it was plain awful. No thanks.
It is really a shame that Doctor Who has reverted to cheap love stories and stereotypical female roles. Russell T. Davies tried very hard to introduce a diverse population of powerful female roles (Martha Jones, Donna Noble, Rose Tyler ) and anti-heteronormative roles (Jack Harkness). The latest section of the Moffat years have resulted in chauvinist Doctors and stereotypical female companions. You could argue River Song was a powerful female character, but generally I am not convinced that she could save the whole show. Not only that… nobody dies… ever, the Doctor hasn’t made any significant moral decisions in the past 2 years… he has just saved everyone all the time even if it is by Deus Ex Machina. Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi can do so much with their acting skills, and they are limited by lazy writing. A new diverse writing staff would do wonders for the show, and it desperately needs help.
Rose and Martha powerful roles? Both were in love with the Doctor and pined for him the whole time. Donna was grating and annoying, but she at did not have a crush on the Doctor. Amy was a better character than Rose or Martha and Clara had potential until they solved her mystery and resorted to her falling for the Doctor.
It would be nice to see more diversity on the Doctor Who writing team. I feel they use the same people far too often as is, resulting, especially, most recently, in the rather ho-hum stories.
It’d be nice to include girls in the Reindeer who games but I just want good stories. I was super excited for Capaldi but not loving the eps. I suspect, and hope I’m right, the pacing and awkwardness is being done on purpose and it’ll be some marvelous payoff soon. I want a good explanation about them visiting the doctor on gallifrey when he was young, wtf!?
I don’t know if having more female writers to simply fill a quota is the right way to go, but the fact is, Doctor Who could stand some new blood, period. The show’s nature makes it possible to have some of the most diverse and varied writing on television. You can have episodes be dark, be light, be serious, be silly, and hit every single genre you can imagine. However, lately the stories seem to have gotten a little repetitive (in a lot of ways, “Kill the Moon” was “The Beast Below” all over again.) With all that being said, since the show can be so wildly varied from episode to episode, it would make sense for the writing team to be just as equally diverse. Female writers can bring in fresh ideas and new perspectives for story, plot, and character development, and I, for one, would welcome it.
I think DW needs some female perspective on writing females. The companions are never quite realistic – they either worship him (Rose, Amy) or they have stereotypical, caricature-ised man issues of some sort (Martha, Donna, Clara). There’s not a lot of balance to be had there because men aren’t women and so can’t really write women well, as much as they might try.
I also think the writing this season is flat overall and they needs some new blood in general. I love Capaldi, but they aren’t giving him the scripting he needs to be the Doctor I think he could be. They’re just writing him as a cranky old man, and if the 50th anniversary movie special about the making of the series is right, they tried the same thing with Doctor 1 and it didn’t work then, either. Nobody wants a cranky pants Doctor, so step it up, writers!
Honestly, I’d want to know the reasoning. Do we want more female Doctor Who writers to fulfill some social gap…just so we can say we had an “adequate” number of female writers? Or do we want more female writers because we feel the show is lacking in a way that specific female writers we know of might be able to improve?
If the former, don’t bother. I don’t see the need in bringing on a woman just for the sake of doing so. Personally, I think the writers have done a fantastic job with the series thus far. I wouldn’t be sad if the current Doctor only got one season…just throwing that out there.