Doctor Who

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I have only seen through "Vampires of Venice"; please don't spoil me for more (unless you can honestly tell me that it will get better, in which case feel free to comment "It will get better!—but I've had the sense from what people have been putting before their own cuts that I won't be seeing that comment).



I really, really want to like the Eleventh Doctor and Amy/Amelia Pond. Sometimes I do like them. Then I don't again. I have seen things I never, ever wanted (nor expected to see) on Doctor Who. Call me a prude (really, feel free; you won't be the first), but I don't really want the Doctor undressing onscreen. What I want far, far less is for a companion to ogle the Doctor undressing! No! Wrong! Stop!

I understand that Amy has emotional problems. She has blatantly obvious reasons for abandonment issues (thanks, Steven Moffat, for whacking us over the head with that repeatedly so that we couldn't possibly miss it). She also seems to have conflated Daddy issues and Boyfriend issues and attached them to the person of the Doctor. Fortunately, "Vampires of Venice" suggests that all she needed to clear that up was a romantic holiday in Venice with her actual fiancé to cure her of those problems. If they've actually cured them, I'll forgive them the facile way in which they did it. I suspect, however, that Amy's emotional troubles will rear their cute little red head again soon.

I like that companions are more complex than some of the early ones. Ace remains one of my favorites, and she seriously needed counseling! Amy, however, not only has problems, but she also seems to have one of the same problems two of the previous three companions had: unrequited love/lust for the Doctor. I managed to ignore it much of the time with Rose and Martha. I know a lot of people got disgusted with one or the other. Honestly, though, they never jumped the Doctor! (Well, okay, it looked like Rose did in one episode, but that was really Cassandra.)

I don't dislike the Eleventh Doctor; I just don't like him tremendously yet. I'm not sure why.

I liked a lot of things Russell Davies did, including bringing back the series, for which he has my undying gratitude. However, I saw two problems as hallmarks of his era (besides the aforementioned tendency of the companions to go gaga over the Doctor):
1. Stories began in truly intriguing ways with great mysteries and then often wound up with WTF? 'resolutions': I can't even bring myself to type the word without scare quotes, and I hate scare quotes.
2. Over the years, Doctor Who has retconned more history/ideas/places/people than I will ever be able to count. However, the pace seemed really to pick up with RTD. Time works differently than we ever knew before: not only can changing timelines create the obvious SF problems, they can allow gargoyle-dragon things into our space-time continuum to eat people! The Doctor can call any time in time and space on his mobile! The TARDIS works! The Doctor can travel to an AU! But he can never go back! But wait—he can! The Doctor can refuse a regeneration! The Doctor can have a regeneration crisis! I'm only hitting the highlights here. It felt as if almost every episode changed or bent something we thought we knew—even if it was something we'd only learned that episode (or the previous).

I had hoped Steven Moffat would put an end to those two kinds of nonsense, or at least diminish them a little. Um, no.
1. The captors of Prisoner One were willing to blow up the entire Earth to kill Prisoner One? The Doctor did not stop with saving the Earth but went on to threaten these aliens? Was that wise? Was that necessary? Was the episode running short?
Convincing an android he was human turned off his bomb. Then we let him go free. Oh, and Rainbow Daleks. 'Nuff said about that episode.
I could go on, but the only resolution I really liked came in "The Beast Below"—except that I had strong déjà vu of Donna insisting that the Doctor could at least save one family from Pompeii. Again, we have the (relatively new) Companion reminding the Doctor what he can and should do, because he seems to have forgotten and/or given the matter insufficient thought.
2. The sonic screwdriver heals neck wounds? Dude, I think you confused it with some vaguely similar-looking tech from Star Trek! Have we ever seen it heal before?
Time seems to have changed how it works again.
The Weeping Angels changed in the course of the story! The Doctor said they relied on a quantum lock: they only move when not observed. Then he said that if they thought Amy could see them, it was as good as if Amy could see them! I need that Rodney McKay "They broke science!" icon here! Brilliant Husband and I are pretty sure quantum physics is not affected by one pretending to observe but not actually doing so. (Of course, how would we know? We weren't actually observing.) Then we saw Weeping Angels move, which not only ruined the physics and the illusion of the whole thing, but showed really poor f/x.
I think I have several other complaints along the same lines, but I expect the rice to finish any minute now, so I should wrap this up.

I want to enjoy the show. I've certainly enjoyed bits!
I like Amy when she's not mooning over the Doctor: curious, eager to get involved, compassionate, everything a companion should be.
I love her boyfriend's description of just how the Doctor is dangerous: he makes people want to impress him!
I like River Song even though I feel she's always on the verge of tipping into Do Not Like in a big way. (I know some people do not like her.) I think Alex Kingston pulls off nearly impossible scripts. I adored how she got her message to the Doctor, relied on him showing up, and threw herself into space.
I loved Liz 10 (aside from the fact that every few years she chose to forget everything and start over, which gave me trouble).
I enjoyed much of "The Time of Angels."

If you can suggest more I should love in the ones I've already seen, or persuade me it's not really so bad, I'd appreciate it. I haven't read anyone else's reactions yet; I have to go hunting for those, so feel free to link below and save me the trouble, if you want me to read your own episode posts.

I'd implore you to tell me it improves, but then I'd know if no one told me that that the situation must be dire, so I won't even ask.

Comments

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

Well, I suspect I've seen a lot less recent Dr. Who than you have, so I probably don't have the same kind of issues--and I never examine the logic, or the science, so that's not an issue, either.... I've never expected Dr. Who to make sense. It certainly didn't when I was a kid!

I don't have any particular issues with companions being drawn to the Doctor, because, really, why wouldn't they be? He's super intriguing and can travel in time! In a way, I think that it's good that they brought it right out into the open to deal with it, especially since they've cast such young actors ith such good chemistry. When you have male and female humanoids, it's going to be there. It's kind of disingenuous to ignore it.

I think it always has been something that was there in the dymamic. In the past, they tended to make companions much more the lesser being, simply by virtue of being human. Kind of a step above K-9, but not by much. That took care of any of that sort of thing, mostly, but if you make them smarter, more vital beiings in their own right, you end up with this issue.

I just plain like this Doctor a lot. In some weird way, he seems more like the Doctors of my childhood, but...not. A lot more fun, more alien, but also more relatable in a way those weren't. You really get a sense of how terribly sad and lonely it must be to be the Doctor.

I can't really tell you it improves, because I've enjoyed it immensely to this point. ;) Nothing to really improve from, for me, although I kind of hate the opening music....

I'm also very glad that they've lost the kind of grim tone that it was developing, which to me was the antithesis of Dr. Who.

Heh, one more edit.... One of the reasons I don't mind things like the sonic screw driver suddenly doing new things, is that, to me, Dr. Who has no internal logic, not like Star Trek, for example, which we expect to mimic actual science. It's a sonic screwdriver! And the fly around in a police box that's really big inside! It doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense, because none of it does. ;)

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Logic (or lack thereof) tends only to bother me if other things already bother me. I'm willing to give DW a lot of leeway because it's more fantasy than SF. I want it to be a kids' show still! I don't want young women throwing themselves at the alien who is centuries old.

You may be right about the tone changing. RTD put a lot of death and destruction into it, didn't he? I could do with less death! (Of course, the bishop and his whole army died; all the "students" in "Vampires of Venice," plus the one father . . . I'm still waiting on this one.)

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

Generally, I'd say the tone is more fun and off the wall, but there's a lot of pathos. I'm okay with that. They're spenind more time on how the Doctor's losses have affected him, which isn't a bad thing....

While his mind is centuries old, his body varies in age. I can see that making a difference. You know, it occurs to me that I never thought of Dr. Who as a children's show. One with special effects that were about as good as that, but not a children's show, specifically.

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

I'm not as into it as I was with Ten and Donna or Martha, but I'm still enjoying it. I'm only up to the Vampire one too (there's one more I think on the queue now, but haven't had a chance to watch it).

I *loved* young Amy in the first ep and the Doctor there (btw, the little girl is apparently a cousin of adult Amy, hence the reakishly close family resemblaance). I don't care for the mooning over either (didn't like it with Martha). But I do love the fiancee, and I like Amy. Yes, about River.

[joonscribble.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Kind of agree with you about everything.

I'm sort of up to date now with the DW episodes that have aired in the UK. The one after the Vampires in Venice is so far my favorite, mainly b/c it was just a better written episode than the others. But I can't say it helped any of the issues you've listed here as being problems with the New Who.

Moffat has said in various interviews that he's basically trying to target the Twilight age group with the new series and I feel like that's more or less ruined DW for me. Not only because I feel too old for this show for the first time in forever, but it has given Moffat the excuse to make Amy a somewhat inconsistent, emotionally messed up person with little intent to actually resolve these issues.

I continue to give the show a chance because I actually find Matt Smith the actor somewhat endearing, even if his Doctor feels a bit too much like a faded carbon copy of Ten.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

*Skips spoilery*

*Sneaks in a hug*

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

I'm dipping in and out of the new series and remain to be convinced. I think Matt Smith will be a cracking actor in a few years; at the moment he feels like he's playing at acting. As a result it doesn't feel like the Doctor has much depth (a faded carbon copy of the previous Doctor, I think someone said rather accurately higher up this thread!)

I liked Amy to start with, but now I'm not so sure. This new angle of the assistant having to fall in love with the Doctor is getting rather tiresome -- for me, it completely ruined the character of Martha, who I liked a lot and who was very badly served by that plot thread. I could never decide how much I liked Donna, but at least she was older and gave the Doctor a hard time and there was no UST *g*.

I know lots of people have raved over Moffat's writing, but I'm one of the (seemingly) few people who isn't fussed by the Weeping Angels eps across both this series and the DT one.

A lot of my grumpiness is down, I think, to this sudden need to have pre-pubescent Doctors and assistants. I liked Christoper Eccleston the best out of all the new Who doctors -- he was older and had an edginess to balance the manic humour. I was trying to convince myself they'd go for someone like Paterson Joseph or David Morrissey or Robert Carlyle to replace DT. When they didn't, I was unreasonably disappointed *g*.

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

I am just up to Venice now (don't worry about spoilers with me :D) and I can honestly say that every thing you've pointed out here is spot on!
1) Could we stop with the companion wanting the Doctor's body! It was never there in the original and we all managed to watch it then. Do the producers think that we aren't going to watch unless there is sex? RTD drove me crazy with his love of Rose. I couldn't stand her and Billie Tyler lisps!
2) I LOVE Alex Kingston! She absolutely rocks :D

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I didn't see the mooning as much with Martha as some other people did (probably a result of willful denial).

I liked Amy a lot better in the episode I saw last night (which ran Saturday), "Amy's Choice."

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Moffat has said in various interviews that he's basically trying to target the Twilight age group with the new series and I feel like that's more or less ruined DW for me. Not only because I feel too old for this show for the first time in forever, but it has given Moffat the excuse to make Amy a somewhat inconsistent, emotionally messed up person with little intent to actually resolve these issues.

Oh, dear. I haven't seen much in the way of interviews. That doesn't sound good to me. We've stopped trying to interest Small Child in the episodes, because the last thing I think a nine-year-old girl needs to see is something like Amy jumping the Doctor.

I can't say it's ruined for me, though; I'm just a bit disappointed. I hope it never is ruined. I try to take the long view. Showrunners come and go; Doctor Who is forever! (It's older than I am!)

[aelfgyfu_mead]

As I said to someone else (above), I never had that much trouble with Martha, but I seem to have been living in denial (imagine that!) about her feelings for the Doctor.

I loved "Blink" and liked parts of the more recent Weeping Angels episodes, but I think the angels were better when they were more mysterious and less overtly monsters from a horror flck. I found creatures that transported people back in time much more interesting than ones that simply broke their necks!

I'm hoping it's all just a phase that DW will pass through. Every time I start to feel bitter, I mutter "Trial of a Time Lord" to myself, and "Ðæs ofereode; þisses swa mæg."

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I liked Rose and Billie Tyler. (I heard she lisped when she returned for "Turn Left" and the other episodes because of recent dental work; I never noticed it in her other episodes). Somehow, with Rose and Martha, I could overlook the crush/lust. It's a lot harder when the companion physically hurls herself at the Doctor!

I do hope things will improve.

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

It's a lot harder when the companion physically hurls herself at the Doctor!
EXACTLY!!!!

[nialla]

I was going through my LJ memories and found I had this post in there because I hadn't watched any of this series when you posted, so I saved it for later review... and hey, it's later, right? Way later. ;)

Gotta say, kinda spot on for me. I wanted to like it, but it seems like they kept a lot of the worst stuff from before and just made it younger. I liked the concept of Amy in general, but sometimes she was so annoying and waffle-y about what she wanted, I was ready to slap her silly.

I'm not much of a fan of River Song (too damn smug for my tastes, plus I'm done with the "I'm so mysterious!" characters who mostly rely on that for interest), so I wasn't too thrilled by her return. And it sounds like we'll be seeing even more of her next series. Yay.

I did like bits and pieces, so I have hopes it will come together better in the next series. One "might be good, might be bad" change will be instead of one series long arc, they'll have one for about half the series, then begin another one.

I liked the Bad Wolf arc back in the day, but it seems like they've been repeating themselves so there's no surprise. It's like watching an M. Night Shyamalan movie with a "twist" at the end; you expect it, therefore, no twist. It almost seems like they feel they have to do it, but there's no subtlety to it.

Also, if I saw the crack in Amy's wall (or wherever it happened to be in an episode) one more time, I think there would have been a crack in my TV with my remote sticking out of it. ;)

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Ha! By the time you replied, I'd forgotten writing it! And of course it took me ten days to comment on your comment (by which time you've probably forgotten commenting). . . .

I find myself now overlooking the flaws a bit more and somewhat eager for more DW. Now that Amy is married, I hope she'll be over lusting after the Doctor. I hope they keep Rory, too, because I like him! ("We'll leave the kissing duties to the brand new Mr. Pond!" "No, No, I'm not Mr Pond, that's not how it works!" "Yes it is!" "Uh, yeah, it is. . . .")

I also hope they stop trying to top themselves every season. This season we'll kill the Doctor and Jack! Now we'll destroy the universe! Now we'll destroy time entirely! I might have the seasons out of order there. I think they destroyed time more than once.

[nialla]

I'm hoping things are slightly more "settled" character-wise next season. I think it would be interesting to have a married couple on the TARDIS, as long as TPTB don't go from "companion must lust after the Doctor" to "new companion is jealous of the Doctor's relationship with their spouse, even if it's not that type of relationship."

I think DW has a long history of trying to top its own outlandishness, but the new version's season-long arcs tend to make it more obvious and driven towards a "big ending!" I like big endings, but how many times can you destroy the Daleks, Cybermen, time, whatever, without it being too much. I like the nods to earlier incarnations, but I'm ready for a moratorium on Dalek appearances for a while.