How the Internet ruined the Doctor Who series 4 finale for it’s own biggest fans

This pretty much applies to any fandom, it’s just Who that’s brought it into sharp focus.

For weeks and months leading up the finale, on fan sites up and down the land (and overseas) fans were watching and speculating and thinking, thinking, thinking. Puts “clues” together and forcing pieces to fit into patterns.

We (yep, I’m definitely one of them) were thousands strong and one person’s dumb theory gave a gem of an idea to someone else, and that person’s theory may have been dumb too but they passed on a little more to someone else. Thousands of us, plotting and coming up with fantastical ideas that required no budget, no time constraints, no concerns about kids watching or anything like that. We had no idea what the point of it all was (if there even was a point). We have no idea if there was an agenda but there were so many people speculating that ideas transcended individuals agendas and because shining possibilities.

Meanwhile RTD and small handful of people had the disadvantage of knowing exactly what story they wanted to tell.

Why disadvantage? Because as a writer you come up with a story and it makes perfect sense inside your own head. You share it with a small group of people and it becomes a story that belongs to all of you, but you’re inside it, so it still makes perfect sense… to you, in context. To you it’s always the most awesome idea ever! You’re focused. You’re committed. You’ve invested yourself in it. Initially masses of ideas may have bounced around in the same way they do on the internet but, as time goes by, it crystalises into something real that needs filming and editing. All the time you’re making little compromises that you don’t expect will amount to much because you know the story in your head. By the time you’re squeeing over the final edit, it looks perfect in your eyes (even if there’s the odd bit that may not be exactly right).

At the end of that, the fans get to see it. The fans, who haven’t walked that road of trial and compromise, the ones who’ve just been having fun doing phase one… speculating and dreaming madly with no constraints.

They don’t know what story you’re trying to tell. They have to work it out from whatever is on screen before them. Things that make perfect sense to you, people then go on the boards and go “huh?” about.

This effect would happen anyway for some people. But stick thousands of us in a place together and shake it up and the ideas of the fans are always going to be a millions miles more interesting that the version on screen that’s the product of relatively few people and a bunch of constraints.