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When I wrote about "The Bells of Saint John", I cited Doctor Who's recent settling into a trend of bland consistency as one of its major problems. I stand by that as one of the overarching problems it has, but another, more insidious one is what I have come to think of as the Problem of Perspective. By way of explanation, let's jump back in time a little to "The Wedding of River Song", the finale of the lumpy but largely successful sixth season. The episode ended with The Doctor faking his own death, making it seem as if he had been killed in the process of regenerating. In the last scene of the episode, he said that he did this because he had become "too big" and needed to return to the shadows. Both at the time and now, I think that was a rare instance of self-reflection not just from The Doctor as a bombastic, forward-moving character, but also on the part of Doctor Who itself.

For The Doctor, it was a way of admitting that he had become too noticeable and that he was attracting much too much attention, something that is dangerous for someone who is meant to be able to travel around with little fanfare, but I also took it to mean that it was an admittance by Moffat and his writers that the show had fallen into the trap of being too grandiose, too often. For a while, it seemed as if every episode of the show revolved around The Doctor having to save the world by the end of the episode, which is perfectly fine considering that he is an immensely powerful being who commands all of space and time, but does get wearying after a while.

The Problem of Perspective is that if every episode is about a life-or-death struggle to save the Earth or the galaxy or the Universe then it gets harder and harder to care with each passing crisis. This is especially problematic where end of season finales are concerned; how can something be a climax when everything leading up to it is just a succession of climaxes? The show needs small-scale stories to give the epic ones meaning, and it's perhaps no coincidence that some of the best episodes the show has ever produced have been ones which aren't about the end of the world, but are about individuals in peril.

If we look at the work of Joss Whedon, someone who has had a clear influence on Moffat's Who, his shows knew how to maintain the perfect balance. Sure, every season of Buffy had a Big Bad whose actions provided the focal point of the bigger story, and many of them had world domination-y intent, but most episodes were about the Scoobies battling demons who had no interest other than killing people. They were combating evil, but it was a low-level kind, the demonic equivalent of pickpockets versus the magical Mafia kingpins who they'd eventually do battle with.

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