Our Vultures peck at new Doctor Who: Exterminate or, er ... carrion? Brid-Aine says: Ever since Doctor Who arrived back on Auntie Beeb screens, there has been a great divide in this country. The Caretaker episode Doctor Who Who you gonna call? Clara and Doctor Who in The Caretaker On the one hand, those who knew and loved the old Doctors, their serious and gentlemanly deportment when faced …
The Doctor is supposed to be uninterested in her romantically, not a blinkered idiot. Coleman is a beautiful woman and neutering the Doctor to the point where he can’t even objectively see that is just bizarre
Coleman is an outrageously beautiful woman. For crying out loud, for this Doctor to ignore that, he must be dead inside!!
Hrm. You know it's occured to me that there's nothing to stop the *same* assistant rejoining as a Doctor's companion. Or indeed anything stopping a companion being companion to an older Doctor and a younger Doctor, simaultaneously.
Heh - you could pluck a River-lite out of thin air, have the Tardis (who recognises all trusted future-companions) let them unlock/open the door, breeze in, collect something, "sorry I'm early, I was late, but I have to leave because I haven't arrived!", breeze out, past a spluttering current Doctor/Companion. These moments are why I like Doctor Who :)
"Heh - you could pluck a River-lite out of thin air, have the Tardis (who recognises all trusted future-companions) let them unlock/open the door, breeze in, collect something, "sorry I'm early, I was late, but I have to leave because I haven't arrived!", breeze out, past a spluttering current Doctor/Companion. These moments are why I like Doctor Who :)"
Positively brilliant! That would be a fantastic moment of "But wait, I... You... Did that just happen?!?"
"These moments are why I like Doctor Who"
Those sorts of moments are precisely why I USED TO like Dr Who. Their replacement with what seems increasingly like a moronic Saturday morning American kids' cartoon is why I can no longer bear to watch it at all. I tried with this new Doctor but almost find him even more idiotic than the gibbering pre-teen with St Vitus' Dance that preceded him. Where is Christopher Eccleston when you need him?
I now find my cat more interesting than Dr Who. My daughter assures me that behind the occasional twitch of a whisker, and disdainful sneer at the menu, lies a great mind absorbed in the deepest, most mysterious recesses of the Universe. And frankly I find my cat more convincing in that role than the recent infantile iterations of Dr Who. The character should be deep with a shallow veneer, not the other way round.
As for the silly little girl and her rather wet, burgeoning boyfriend - is this the stultifyingly dreary Amy & Rory metaphorically emerging from the shower? Come back River Song, please. Only the heady mix of your sensual magnetism and cosmic intellect can save me from watching the cat.
"Coleman was best when she was actually a Dalek"
Yes. And has become ever more pointless and infantile ever since. Bring back Donna, the best foil The Doctor ever had; she supplied the down-to-earth (excuse the pun) attitude that he was too rarified to relate to. I am tired of little girls barely off their mothers' breasts, who the writers make out to be more capable than the Doctor at his own 900 year-old Time Lord game.
I think it's a bit more bizarre that people don't see that the Dr. knows what he shouldn't be doing with the young human-lady, but has a bit of naughty delight in getting her dander up in a way that leaves her befuddled over whether he's simply teasing her or he really is that ignorant of human notions of youth & beauty. I've been finding the entire process to be quite amusing!
It's the people who write the stories and those who play the part. All we've done is switch actor, they all play the same character rushing around in the same old story fighting the same old enemies using the same old sonic screwdriver all the while grimacing at the camera and ultimately using the same deus ex to complete the story.
It might have been more interesting if the current doctor *did* have the hots for his assistant at least it'd add *something* new. At the moment it's hard to tell the last three apart if you squint. The doctor has become invincible like Superman, and, like Superman the stories are equally uninteresting. A bit more Batman Dark Knight might be appropriate.
Moffat has turned out to be a one trick pony, ok if you really like the trick, but dull and repetitive if you don't.
Some of the storylines have been weak, (clockwork robots again? And is THAT the best you could up with having as magnificent a character as Robin Hood to work with?), but the 'thing under the bed' and 'mind-sucking aliens' episodes were great.
Peter Capaldi is so far proving to be an excellent Doctor. I far prefer the doctor to be an old irascible git, rather than a 20-something hipster. He's spent a thousand years fighting other aliens, travelled teh length and breadth and (time) height and depth of the Universe, he's seen it all and done it all. He's bound to be a bit impatient with everyone else. And yet he retains that love of adventure and a certain twinkle in the eye.
Of course there is still plenty of time before a final judgement. Both Tennant and Smith took a while to grow on me, and they were both definitely "The Doctor" in the end
"they all play the same character"
I'd disagree with you there - they all play an embodiment of the Doctor, but hasn't one of the properties of regeneration always been to change his character traits, so I'd say one person but different characters?
The sonic screwdriver always seems to get an upgrade with each Doctor too (probably each series now, so they can ensure a fresh supply of Christmas goodies each year) - it seems to be prescient too as it always seems to upgrade itself with exactly the new functionality needed for all the problems in the new series! It might be fun if one sonic screwdriver upgrade turned out to be buggy and turned it all slow and clunky and made it fail at the most inconvenient moment!
>>What a vista that would be."
> You mean a Modern sonic screwdriver?
No, that would be a flat-head.
Is it me or is Danny an older version of Rose's bf? The young/dumb matched with unusual-features-Rose so that it kinda worked, but poor Danny doesn't seem like a believable match for Clara. She's very quick he seems a very slow and plodding. After meeting the Doctor in Caretaker, he's already end-of-series resigned to his place.
I had never heard of the previous actors before I saw them on Dr Who, so I would think that PC has some residual "Malcolm-ness" in most adult heads...
Take a step back though, and he's a bit darker for sure - and the pretty companion is looking less placeholder and more conspirator...
DT and JS were sometimes hilarious! You might all like to know the Master's Scissor Sisters dance does not appear on Netflix - which is a real shame as it was very surprising at the time!
P.
Gavin and (to a degree) Jennifer. I think PC _can_ be a great doctor but someone has to make an effort with the scripts. The first one was just terrible with Capaldi and Coleman trying far too hard to make a genuinely awful script the series reboot it should have been. They've got slowly better, I'd like to see one where they don't refer to Clara's life on earth and just go on a whacky adventure - you know, like Dr Who!
I disagree almost entirely with Brid-Aine, but I can see the point-of-view. To me the relationship between Doctor and side-kick is very-much unimportant - it never used to be an issue pre-Billy Piper - can't we just go back to exploring the multiverse?
I like Peter Capaldi - and I like some of the concepts in ‘New’ Who. I liked the Blink concept. I liked the Listen concept. I thought the crack in the wall was an awesome concept. But what I really want from Doctor Who is less silliness and more full-on buttock-tightening terror. I want to be scared, and cowering, behind the sofa.
But, as my wife points out, what will scare the willies out of a mid-forties curmudgeon might be overkill for the core child audience.
"But what I really want from Doctor Who is less silliness and more full-on buttock-tightening terror."
THIS! A brief bit of silliness every now and then is good BUT, there should be clear limits on how much and how often.
As for Listen that, in my reckoning, goes down as the (VERY close) second best episode of the current era, topped only by Blink. Mr. Moffat et.al. - More like that please!
I’ve been watching Dr Who since Tom Baker, and also seen several older episodes since.
I reckon that everyone can see the faults, but all series have filler episodes that tread water until the good one-offs and the main story arc builders come in.
The main point for me is that it’s actually quite silly, sometimes childish and easy to absorb sci-fi.
As far as silly Sci-Fi story lines go, whilst Dr Who wasn’t being made, I had to make do with Lexx which again was mostly stupid, but had the odd cracking story lines.
Roll on Dr Who – if you take it seriously, you’re probably a bit silly though.
Exceptional Doctor Who plots have always been the exception. Largely, it's re heated sci fi for a family audience. And that's true pre- or post- reboot.
But Nu Who had become a chore to watch; I was just hanging on for Matt Smith's charms. Not this series, however. Whether it's being daft or being serious, it's zinging. The Caretaker was so Whedonesque it could have been an episode of Buffy. And I love the screwball comedy that Clara and Capaldi are generating; it may not be deep but it does deconstruct how we judge people by appearance ("why is your face all coloured in?") and young children won't have really thought about those issues before. So its great.
People take Doctor Who too seriously. It's meant to be fun. At the moment it is. Enjoy it.
(And also, nobody mentioned Clara's outfits. How could you not want them all???!!)
Matt Smith wasn't a really good Doctor IMO. It was partly because he had an incredibly hard act to follow in David Tennant.
Also Karen Gillan was good eye candy but a bit lacklustre in the character/ personality department. Jenna Coleman manages to sparkle more but I do think she is let down a little by the scripts which are overall good (especially Listen), but don't give her a satisfying part.
Peter Capaldi has been a pleasant surprise after Matt Smith. A more serious and abrasive character, yet able to carry off the comedy well.
Amy, in the first series was a great doctors companion, as was Rory. The problem was that after the first great series the scripts went a bit downhill.
As for favorite doctor, that for me is a tough one. As with Jennifer, I had a bit of a girl crush on David Tennant (to be fair, I still do...) and so it's a tough comparison for any other. But! I think that Matt did a great job (again, with slowly worsening scripts to work with - his send off was a huge anti-climax when you compare it David's!).
So far I am loving Peter, there have been dud eposides, but as others have said there have also been great ones - Listen was hairs on the back of the neck terrifying (I'll admit at this point that I never watch horror, this is as creepy as I go) and I'd also list it as second only to Blink.
Clara depserately needs some personality padding. And she needs to be happy and smile less when situations are seriously bad. But, yes, I would love most of Clara's outfits. (Actually, I have red handbag now as I thought it looked so good on the show :S )
I find it hard to criticise Dr Who without having to mention Tumble, Splash, Celebrity Come Dancing, X Factor, Pop Idols, and hours of what I would personally call drivel, and, when I've done that, Dr Who seems highly admirable regardless of which doctor, sidekick, 'monster', alien, writer or director it has.
It's not always great but it's rarely been bad either. It's certainly got great production values these days and that alone is worth applauding. I could find fault but I always feel a little mean-spirited in doing so when there's so much else which is worse elsewhere.
There are two things that commentards will not hear a word against: Dr. Who is one.
Maybe to get a bit of Register luvvin' all the Doctor has to do is dump his sonic screwdriver and whip out his Raspberry Pi.
It stands to reason that within the confines of a time machine, the bitty little processor would have an infinite clock speed and due to the Dimensional Transcendentalism of the TARDIS, probably much more memory than appears from the outside. Therefore it would be eminently possible for the pinn-y little thing to solve any problem it was given.
You never know, it might even come up with some better scripts.
I like PC, like the one-liners and the darker approach.
What doesn't work so well for me is the harsh line between story arc and episodic format. Moffat seems to have fallen into the rhythm of one-concept per episode (too often borrowed from a film), which gives little time to explore an idea before they have to leap to a quick conclusion (*cough* shooting a spaceship with a gold arrow). The heavy handed teasers that something else is going on do not constitute a story arc, so much as build to a series end that cannot possibly satisfy once you've got past the "so that's what it meant" discovery.
A little more continuity between episodes would help, as would one or two properly identifiable baddies that the doctor can bash up against rather than simply not understand before producing a rabbit from his hat. At the moment, it's like watching a pin-ball machine: individual events are exciting, but the lack of any flow makes it a bit exhausting.
"What doesn't work so well for me is the harsh line between story arc and episodic format. [...] The heavy handed teasers that something else is going on do not constitute a story arc, so much as build to a series end that cannot possibly satisfy once you've got past the "so that's what it meant" discovery."
^ This, this and more this.
You've more or less said what I've said elsewhere before now about new Who. IIRC, the last time I bothered to discuss this was a couple of seasons back (the one where Amy was preggers/not preggers, having been taken and replaced with a replicant of some sort). It struck me that the "story arc" elements were - for most of the season - no more than reminders of something that was shown to us in the first episode.
This whole afterlife/Missy thing is coming across to me in the say way. Varying the person meeting Missy (because it's a different person this episode who has been offed) - and even having the person not meet Missy because she isn't there - doesn't change that.
For me, a good story arc needs to be integrated more seamlessly and subtly into the individual episode's stories, not jar from it, and build up over time equally subtly. (Though the*occasional* out of place, unexpected moment is acceptable - think the first ever reveal of a Shadow vessel in Babylon 5; a proper "WTF?" moment that makes you sit up and take even more notice in future.)
The problem is thay Moffet's son has a short attention span and can't cope with a story that spans more than one episode (he has said this in an interview, OK I may be paraphrasing - but he said he son didn't like multi week stories) and so he decided that he couldn't upset his him. Ergo, he is writing for his son, rather than for the fans.
I would love more multi-episode stories where they can really get stuck into the story, leave a cliff hanger or two and leave out the current rushing to a conclusion.
Maybe not - for the recent spate of Doctors, until Capaldi came along, they've all been getting physically younger with each regeneration as they've been getting older.
Maybe it's stretching a point, but by that measure he may consider someone as young as Oswald to be 'old'... or maybe he's just clowning around!
"Maybe it's stretching a point, but by that measure he may consider someone as young as Oswald to be 'old'... or maybe he's just clowning around!"
Maybe this Doctor just doesn't fancy humans.
I mean, you'd save a sack of drowning puppies but you might not want to take them home and have them crap everywere.
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